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On 1 May 2000, Eric Honegger became president of the board of Swissair, the national Swiss aviation corporation. He inherited from his predecessor a corporation which had been declining throughout most of the previous decade. Traditionally, Swissair had been both a strong organisation and a national icon of Switzerland. The liberalisation of the European airline market, together with the rejection by the Swiss population of a connection to the European Economic Area in 1993, placed Swissair in a strategically problematic situation. As a direct consequence, a co-operation and acquisition strategy was launched: the Hunter Strategy. Through this program, Swissair aimed at creating a global alliance under Swiss leadership. In the following years, the firm acquired significant stakes of European airlines. Growing pressure in the liberalised airline market encroached on the EBIT of most of these airlines. Swissair, once named 'The Flying Bank', passed through an unsuccessful development in the second half of the 1990s. In this situation, Eric has become the new pilot of the Swiss icon. What change of strategies or policies is required to gain altitude again? He has 24 hours left until the next board meeting to clarify his thinking about the current situation.